Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Walter Murdoch (1874–1970). The Oxford Book of Australasian Verse. 1918.

158. The Parting of Ways

THE SKIES from black to pearly grey

Had veered without a star or sun;

Only a burning opal ray

Fell on your brow when all was done.

Aye, after victory, the crown;

Yet through the fight no word of cheer;

And what would win and what go down

No word could help, no light make clear.

A thousand ages onward led

Their joys and sorrows to that hour;

No wisdom weighed, no word was said,

For only what we were had power.

There was no tender leaning there

Of brow to brow in loving mood;

For we were rapt apart, and were

In elemental solitude.

We knew not in redeeming day

whether our spirits would be found

Floating along the starry way,

Or in the earthly vapours drowned.

Brought by the sunrise-coloured flame

To earth, uncertain yet, the while

I looked at you, there slowly came,

Noble and sisterly, your smile.

We bade adieu to love the old;

We heard another lover then,

Whose forms are myriad and untold,

Sigh to us from the hearts of men.